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Time to reunite with 'Good Wife' on CBS

By Hank Stuever, The Washington Post

Posted:
10/28/2013 04:43:55 PM MDT

Updated:
10/28/2013 04:43:59 PM MDT

Executive producer Robert King, actress Julianna Margulies and executive producer Michelle King of the TV show "The Good Wife" attend the Television Critic Association's Summer Press Tour - CBS/CW/Showtime panels held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on July 29, 2013 in Beverly Hills, California. (Tommaso Boddi/WireImage)

I've cheated here and there on “The Good Wife” (and maybe you have, too), lured away by the temptations of Sunday night cable. This must-watch CBS legal drama somehow became one of my “stackables,” which means I let episodes collect in the queue until I can blaze through them on my next couch day. It doesn't mean I dishonor accolades of “The Good Wife” in real time; seasons come and seasons go and its quality never wavers, especially when it comes to broadcast network shows.

So now that Walt is done and the zombies appear to be walking in circles, it's a perfect time to renew vows this Sunday with Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) and her zany world of billable hours, litigious social-networkers and Illinois state politics.

As faithful viewers already know, this episode has been a long time coming: Alicia and her once-rival Cary Agos (Matt Czuchry) are discovered in the act of starting their own law firm. Each promptly gets a security escort out of the Lockhart Gardner offices, where the remaining partners now scramble to keep clients from being wooed by the fledgling Florrick Agos.

In this deliciously venomous and rollicking episode (title: “Hitting the Fan”), so much of what “Good Wife” devotees have desired (and feared) comes to pass. How can Alicia so fully betray the confidence of her friend, mentor and occasional lover, Will Gardner (Josh Charles)? How can she leave behind the uncannily resourceful Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi)? What will become of Diane Lockhart's (Christine Baranski) state supreme court nomination?

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Without revealing anything, I'll simply pause to admire “The Good Wife's” tireless and almost always flawless juggling act. In 42 tensely packed minutes, “The Good Wife” squeezes in an important, deepening scene for nearly all of its main and supporting characters and their ongoing plotlines — even Alicia's boring teenagers. All the while, the show displays its hallmark ability to operate in a world driven and shaped by technology; defecting associates are a crisis only a good IT staff can thwart.

All of which is to say it takes a nuclear meltdown like this for “The Good Wife” to set aside its usual case-trial-resolution backdrop. Here you begin to wonder why the creators still lack the confidence (or network permission?) to do so more often.

At last we see Alicia with claws out. “Hitting the Fan,” as advertised, reshuffles the deck in ways that might see “The Good Wife” through to a satisfying series conclusion in the not-too-distant future. The show is in its fifth season, after all, and doing what it can to survive the Sunday night ratings brawl; it's only practical (only Alicia-like) to start thinking about how and where her story ends.

Not all kids who play baseball are uniformed with fancy script across their chests, traveling to $1,000 instructional camps and drilled how to properly hit the cut-off man. Some kids just play to play.

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About this series

A team of Denver Post reporters began investigating Colorado's system of monitoring parolees after the shooting death in March of state corrections chief Tom Clements, allegedly by a parolee.

Through open-records requests, The Post identified and researched 33 cases since 2002 in which parolees in Colorado committed or are accused of murder. The Post reviewed prison and parole documents for these cases and also obtained state audits, internal reports and jail booking data. Reporters interviewed corrections officials, parole officers, parolees, experts and families of victims.

Here's a look at each day's story:

Day 1: Lax supervision over Colorado parolees has had deadly consequences. Thirty-three parolees were convicted or charged with 38 murders in the last decade - in some cases only weeks after being released from prison.

Day 2: The state's prison system is struggling to find a solution to prisoners released directly from their solitary cells to the streets. Half of the parolees who murdered spent time in solitary confinement.

Day 3: In jail and on parole, offenders often don't receive treatment for substance abuse or mental illness or participate in programs to help them adjust to life on the outside.

Day 4: As Colorado tries to lower one of the highest return-to-prison rates in the nation, parole officers are stuck in a tug-of-war that pits second chances against swift punishment.